


Like This, I Hope

by junebeam



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebeam/pseuds/junebeam
Summary: 2022. Kim Jinwoo is retired. Kwon Jiyong is in his house. The two of them spend a couple hours ignoring a journalist to reassure you that they're doing well.





	Like This, I Hope

  
  
**Imjado, early in the day.** It’s a creaky single-story house with a corrugated blue roof, some steps away from town. A strand of wet gray sand, a humble esplanade, and piles of broken concrete slabs, their rebar bared like bones and rusting bloodred in the ocean breeze, are all that separate the cottage from the sea; but the dwelling itself is impeccably clean and sports a fresh white coat of paint. Its windows and doors are opened brightly to a dewy island morning. A short sun-bleached porch hangs off its side, choked with free ranging daylilies. It’s here, at the corner of a salt-caked patio table, as I’m laying out my recording equipment and untangling computer cords, that thirty-one-year-old Kim Jinwoo approaches me warily. 

“Your editors are good, right?” he asks me with a shy laugh. “No one has taken a professional picture of me in almost a year. I haven’t been taking care of my face.”

It makes sense that Jinwoo would worry about his appearance after some time out of the public eye. As the oldest member of former idol group Winner, his wildly high visibility has always been a given, but there’s more to it than that. Over the years, Jinwoo has been open about considering his beauty to be his only real asset. When asked what his specialty was within Winner, he would respond with a kind of resigned humor, “face”; more than once, he shared that he felt his vocals were weak compared with the other members’, that he would frequently forget choreography, that being charming in variety shows never came naturally. His fellow members eagerly challenged this perception, but it is also true that throughout his career, Jinwoo could never be discussed without mention of what still-active rapper Song Minho affectionately refers to as “the most handsome face in the world.”

Jinwoo’s visual brand has always been one of angelic innocence, centering wide, guileless eyes set in a smooth clear oval of a face. He has been called _doe, doll, rabbit,_ and popularly, _Imjado prince._ From what he says, it sounds like he has become far less stringent about maintaining this particular style of beauty. He has the faintest five o’clock shadow on his chin, along with a single pimple, which I assure him we can edit out if the intern tasked with today’s light makeup doesn’t get it. But beyond this, it’s hard to see what Jinwoo thinks is wrong with his face now. The sun has deepened his complexion into a natural and healthy-looking glow. He wears jeans and a t-shirt in the balmy morning and has visibly gained some muscle since his idol days, when he was teased by staff for consistently choosing TV dramas over the gym.

“I’ve been taking this rowboat out with Jiyong-hyung a lot,” he says, when asked about his fitness regimen, and gestures to an overturned dinghy in the yard with chipped blue paint. He drops the tone of secrecy he used when talking to me about the condition of his skin. “The internet here sometimes isn’t good for streaming TV,” he adds with a laugh, “so we fish.”

“I love the fishing!” A reedy, cheerful voice calls out to us from the doorway to the house. “It makes me feel like an old monk, all alone in nature.” 

Kwon Jiyong steps out of the shadow of the blue metal roof onto the porch and greets me with warring habits, the magnanimous grin and double-handed wave of extreme fame wrestling with an ordinary polite duck of the head.

“Jinwoo is a born captain, too,” he says, and squeezes Jinwoo by the shoulder, which causes Jinwoo to shimmer a little with a flattered expression. This appears to be the intended reaction.

When publicly active as G-Dragon of BIGBANG, Kwon Jiyong was noted for the stark separation between his stage persona and his private self. Today, though all idols look different without makeup, Jiyong certainly looks more different from most of his pictures and performances than Jinwoo does. He embraces the low-key island boy aesthetic by loping around in a women’s strappy tank top and cutoffs. He’s handily shorter than Jinwoo, sun-gilded and stubbly, with a small, relaxed body that speaks to good eating and outdoor activity. He’s hardier than the stress-shrunken GD the world saw with M.O.T.T.E. and BIGBANG’s Last Dance tour. His hair is unstyled except with a few loose copper sunburnt streaks, and flops carelessly into his face. At a glance, he is recognizable only by his shrewd eyes, high-cheeked grin, and telltale tattoos.

Jinwoo has openly adored Jiyong for years. Known as the “official GD fanboy” of Winner, he has even covered G-Dragon songs in solo stages—hopping one-legged with smiles instead of snarls through “Crooked” in 2016 and sweetening even tender “Untitled” in 2018.

Now, as the two of them watch me set up my stuff, Jiyong balances unsteadily on a piece of driftwood so he can drape his arm on Jinwoo’s shoulder in an elder-brotherly manner. Even when we pull out the patio furniture and can sit comfortably for a longer conversation, Jiyong’s messing with Jinwoo a bit, throwing him wry glances, twisting his sleeve in his fingers, kicking idly at his chair leg. They’re having fun together. Jinwoo frequently flashes that slightly blushing smile, as if humbly basking in his senior’s attention; but at other moments he seems to forget the differences of age and experience between them, and teases Jiyong back eagerly. When asked how far back their relationship goes, they share a look. When they giggle, they screen their mouths in complementary manners; Jiyong with the back of his hand, Jinwoo with his palm. 

“Jiyong-hyung was already very successful with BIGBANG when I became a trainee,” Jinwoo explains. “He was super famous, and I was nobody. When I would see him, I would feel all cold and sweat a lot, and avoid looking at him.” He laughs. “Our relationship was not close for a very long time.” 

Jiyong becomes serious. 

“I didn’t think much of [Winner’s pre-debut team, Team A] when they were training, really. It’s true that they were cuter and more likeable [than Team B], but I had this feeling...‘they’re so old, but still struggling like that?’” He smiles apologetically. “I was training since I was a little kid. And conditions were a lot harder for me and my members. So when Winner was starting out...it’s hard to explain my feelings, but I wasn’t too sympathetic at first. Later when they won I saw them crying, overwhelmed and sad that they had to leave the other trainees behind, and that moved me a lot. I began caring for them very slowly after that.” He nods, satisfied with his answer.

  
  
**_When did you begin to know Jinwoo personally?_ **

“Just at the same time as the other Winner members,” says Jiyong. “Like coworkers do, we got to know each other personally.” Then he grins. “Actually, when they were doing their TV show for debut, I remember Jinwoo had a mission to hang out with me, to become closer to me and get praise from me. He sang my song ‘Who You’ for me and the BIGBANG members, and I messed with him a lot because he was so scared. Do you remember that, Jinwoo-ya?”

“No,” says Jinwoo coolly, but when Jiyong smirks at him, he folds. “Ah, ah, hyung, don’t talk about this,” Jinwoo begs, reaching over to pull on Jiyong’s shirt. Jiyong cackles.

“He was just... _shining_ with sweat. Oh, we were really mean.”

Jinwoo keeps laughing. When he’s embarrassed, his laughter comes in rapid gasps and he screws up his eyes as if trying to shutter out whatever situation he has found himself in. He clutches Jiyong’s hand and they pull their locked fists back and forth between them like puppies wrestling for a knotted rope.

“You were so cute! How could I resist terrorizing you?”

“Hyung, please...”

_**We all remember that scene from WinnerTV. So Jinwoo’s mission was successful, and you became close after that?** _

“No,” say Jinwoo and Jiyong together. “Not really.” 

“It’s hard for me to look out for others,” Jiyong admits. “Even in my group, I was the leader but didn’t often feel much responsibility. I was never the kind of person to take care of juniors. As Winner matured and had more success, we became closer friends. They were improving a lot and getting popular, but then their maknae started struggling mentally and they went through a hard time. I thought they must be lonely so I began to invite them to eat with me and BIGBANG sometimes.”

“That was a mistake,” he adds. “Because Jinwoo messaged me so much from then on. He would text me about what was happening and ask me for advice. It was very touching, but...also so annoying!” However, like everything else, he says this with a grin.

“Yes, but you never replied,” Jinwoo laughs.

“Of course not,” says Jiyong.

“So I stopped, didn’t I? You make me sound embarrassing.”

“It was when he stopped that we became close,” Jiyong says. “I started texting him.”

He imitates himself, adopting a cloying younger-girlfriend voice and leaning in close to Jinwoo’s shoulder, which provokes a lazy giggle. “‘ _Jinwoo-yaaa, what are you watching on TV? Did you eat well today?_ ’ It was honestly that sort of thing. I missed the attention! I became the embarrassing one.”

Jinwoo preens, vindicated.

“We’d hang out, too,” continues Jiyong, “because Jinwoo would be watching a drama in the rec room at the YG building and it would…suspiciously…always be one that I liked.”

Jinwoo interrupts him with a mortified whisper, and Jiyong pounces.

“ _Ha! Caught!_ But it doesn’t surprise me,” he says. “You’re always so obvious. No, don’t look embarrassed—it’s lovable, ah, no…stop squirming!” He pulls Jinwoo into a suppressive hug. “It’s good. You’re the best kid in the world, okay?”

He returns to the topic, pinning a sweating Jinwoo under his arm.

“I was only in Korea at the same time as Winner for, I don’t know, maybe two months out of the year? So during that time we watched together a lot, actually. Like four or five occasions.”

Jinwoo extricates himself and chimes in softly. “My members and I were having some sadness and drama. I wasn’t busy writing, so I would just spend hours lying on my stomach like this” —he crosses his arms beneath his chin to demonstrate— “in front of the TV set, not wanting to go home. Jiyong-hyung would kind of pass by...and then pretend to notice what was on, and circle back around, and sit down quietly. After three programs I would hear someone next to me say ‘I’m hungry, let’s order some food?’ and my soul would leave my body.”

Jiyong laughs into his wrist again. 

“That’s right, that’s right.” He says. “I never wanted to announce myself. You get very absorbed when watching dramas. If no one calls out to you, you don’t notice anything. So I thought it was funny to appear magically.” 

**_Did Kwon Jiyong appear magically at Imjado?_ **

Jiyong looks straight ahead.

Jinwoo thinks hard for a moment, then says seriously, 

“Sort of, yes.” 

“Don’t say it like that,” says Jiyong, rounding on him. “We talked about it, right?” 

Jinwoo waves his hands, hastily correcting himself. 

“No, no, of course we did, I just meant that...It happened really just like with the dramas. Jiyong-hyung texted me, kind of like...” Jinwoo puts on a sweet voice and mimes typing into a phone. He appears to be miming slight tipsiness as well. “‘Jinwoo-yaaa...what are you up to...?’” 

Jiyong seems to be struggling not to burst like a water balloon into a splash of sheepish laughter. He spreads open his hand in denial while Jinwoo grins into his shoulder. 

“He’s exaggerating, okay?” He pretends to sneer, but his neck has grown visibly warm.

“But really, no one gives attention like Jinwoo. It’s impossible to be lonely around him. When Winner was having hard times, he wanted company and reassurance from me. But in the end, it was me who…He loves and gives his company so purely. That’s why I wanted to come.”

Jinwoo is as still as death, all shimmery again. 

**_So are you roommates now? Or is it more like a vacation?_ **

“I’m on vacation. The best of my juniors is generously hosting me,” says Jiyong. 

“Of course we would never need roommates,” adds Jinwoo in a winded voice. “Jiyong-hyung likes to live with his family. For me, I like to live alone, but I often invite friends for company.”

_**Would you like to talk a little about the house?** _

“Yes, it’s originally the house I was born in,” Jinwoo says. “I moved here to be close to my family. My parents and my sisters—and now I have young nieces and nephews, and I want to be part of their lives, too...” 

“Ah, the kids are so precious,” Jiyong blurts out with a beam, unable to help himself. “I love them. They’re around often. It seems great for a kid to have space outdoors to play...” 

Jinwoo raps Jiyong gently on the chest, but fails a straight face.

“We’re talking about the house!” 

“Sorry, go on.” It takes a moment for Jiyong’s tender expression to fade. 

Jinwoo continues. 

“It was vacant and broken down before, so it’s in a very fixed-up condition now…Actually, the members from Winner have seen it before. When we debuted, they came to visit and we all signed our names on it. Lately when we talked about what we would do after leaving the company, I always said I wanted to come home here. The renovations were a surprise, a gift from Lee Seunghoon."

The day’s plan includes a photo-op tour of the premises and walk around the surrounding natural area. After Jinwoo’s earlier comment about how he gets exercise these days, I also ask to see where he and Jiyong go fishing. 

The house itself looks like a painting, with its white walls and blue roof, its sunny skirt of lilies. The outside is otherwise unadorned, but the interior doorway is bordered with a tiny mural: a delicate, tastefully irregular flower garland, trailing after a small bird taking off toward the corner. The roses and the bird are blue—Song Minho’s signature.

“Mino original,” says Jinwoo proudly. “Pretty, right?”

Besides this, there are surprisingly few signs of Jinwoo’s former idol life. The pictures on the cabinets and walls are of his sisters and their children, his mother and father. The place’s bachelor pad status has perhaps intensified with the added presence of a second chronically-single, fame-fatigued thirty-something. The articles of clothing strewn about are decidedly chosen for comfort over beauty; I count four oversized hoodies in the living room alone. A chubby sphynx cat, disturbed from its hiding place, streaks off into a shaded hallway. Among the sweatshirts, snack boxes, and video game consoles, Jiyong seems to have staked out a corner—there, paint markers lie collapsed in dozens over the wild scribbles of their work, as if exhausted by the effort, while cigarette butts accumulate in seashells scavenged from the strand.

_**Who cooks?** _

“Ah, me,” says Jinwoo, which causes Jiyong to smile coquettishly behind him.

“I always thought it would be cute to learn to cook together with someone...Jinwoo’s father recently brought us blue crabs and showed us how to make gejang.” Jinwoo goes a little pink.

“I’m not so good at cooking,” Jinwoo says hastily. “But I know how to make basic things. There’s always pasta.”

Next we wander to the beach. It is unpopulated and un-idyllic, dull sand punctuated with monstrous pieces of boats. The morning haze has begun to break up beneath a swelling sun. For a while, the two men meander off ahead of me, playing tag with the photographer and whispering to each other like schoolgirls on a playground. They occasionally climb giant washed-up trunks of trees, smoothed and bleached by salt. At one point, Jiyong tries to scale a fragment of some unrecognizable nautical machine, car-sized and rusted into lace, but Jinwoo rushes to reach up and lift him bodily down from it. A reproach can be heard over the surf— _hyung, dangerous!_ —and Jiyong topples back into his junior’s arms, overpowered, laughing all his breath out to sea. They pull themselves together in time to have their picture taken once or twice, but they are hard to catch. 

They _are_ hard to catch. Freedom radiates from the looseness of their limbs, the careless lapses between activities. They have let themselves unlearn the camera habits. Nuisances and distractions—a rumbling stomach, the itchy tag of a shirt, sand in a shoe, a funny-shaped shell—no longer must be tolerated or ignored. Instead, as Jinwoo and Jiyong walk ahead together, these little things can be complained of, remarked on, laughed at, dealt with tenderly.

They stop walking; Jiyong turns Jinwoo around, says “Hold still,” and tears away the shirt tag with his teeth. They stop again. Jiyong pours sand out of his slip-on sneaker, catching traces of it in his hand and sprinkling it on Jinwoo’s shoulder. They bend down together and titter at the strangely-broken shell, not bothering to make themselves audible. 

The other questions I have prepared begin to seem somewhat helpless to uncover their new private life. They are no longer pretending to have a hidden side. 

***

The sun has risen high enough to warm the watering hole where they go rowboat fishing—a large, flat, brackish pool connected to an inlet by the single thread of a thin green creek, shaded by the dark and oily leaves of summer trees. Jinwoo paces easily around the water’s edge, pointing out the fallen branches beneath which fish particularly like to feed. 

“I like to sit on this rock when fish aren’t biting,” says Jiyong in a bored tone. He hoists himself onto a volcanic boulder which leans over the water like a willow. He pats its lichened top with the palm of his hand and Jinwoo scrambles up to join him, just so Jiyong can put his head in Jinwoo’s lap before resuming his remarks. 

“It’s quiet, so I can just watch what’s around me. Jinwoo swimming, or a bird or tree. It’s nice to just watch and listen. It smells muddy, but...maybe I like that, too?” He sniffs, then turns his head to hide his nose in Jinwoo’s t-shirt. “No, I don’t like it right now.” 

“It’s lunch time soon,” Jinwoo says. “You’re getting fussy, hyung.”

“Maybe,” says Jiyong. “But we have questions to get through, right?” He waves his hand lazily in my direction. 

_**What’s your best fishing story?** _

“I’m better at it,” says Jiyong, perking up with sudden glee, “and it makes Jinwoo very, very angry.”

Jinwoo takes the bait instantly. With an aggravated grin he pushes Jiyong’s head from his thigh. 

“Incredible, lying like that!” 

Jiyong turns liquid with laughter. Every muscle in his reclining body goes slack and he lies there, chest trembling, laughing too hard to speak despite Jinwoo’s repeated shoves. Finally he manages to curl into a kneeling position on the rock and wave his arm weakly in self- defense. Jinwoo looks at him scorchingly, expectant and enraged.

“He caught a fish _once._ ”

“It’s because of the circumstance,” says Jiyong, still gasping for breath. “Recently, there was a really rare one Jinwoo spotted, an unusually big...what was it?”

Jinwoo pauses.

“...I’ll think of it in a minute!” he snaps. “I’m too angry at you to think of some fish name. And anyway, it doesn’t matter if—”

Jiyong cackles feebly and sniffs hard—he has laughed until his eyes and nose began to stream.

“Right, whatever. In any case, I won. I caught it. Even his father praised me, and Jinwoo, no kidding, didn’t speak to me for hours. I had to be so nice...”

Jiyong scoots over and folds Jinwoo in his arms ingratiatingly.

“I’m still mad,” Jinwoo admits, but his eyes are sparkling.

_**What’s your favorite part of life right now?** _

They look at each other. 

“It occurred to me,” says Jiyong, “that I haven’t had a normal friendship in a long time.” He closes his eyes and speaks slowly, fadingly. His head drops a little onto Jinwoo’s shoulder, and his lashes flutter at the soft impact. 

“Even our friendship can’t be called normal,” he murmurs. Perhaps he is feigning sleepiness to avoid Jinwoo’s gaze, which shines poignantly out of a very reddened face. “But I like having a companion...I like the cooking, and the fishing...drinking beer...nobody watching. The dirty sand. The little children running around.”

Jinwoo nods, looking at his knees. “Me too.”

**_What does the future look like for Kim Jinwoo and Kwon Jiyong?_ **

“Like this, I hope,” says Jinwoo. “I’m going to keep living in this house by myself and inviting friends. I want the Winner members to come visit me often. I want to have barbecues on the beach with good people, drink but not too much, take care of my parents, watch my nieces and nephews grow up. I have a manager now who will get me acting work, but I want to be a good son for a while first.” 

“I want to travel a lot,” says Jiyong. “And to make art, design clothing, avoid being seen for a while. As for music, performing...I’m super retired,” he laughs. “But I do know that makes some people sad, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear that—people’s disappointment—forever. It became too much as I got older, it began to make me very sick, tired, not a good person—I hope people will try to understand. But really, it’s hard for me to talk about the future, because I haven’t even started thinking about now.” 

**_Often when idols retire, they are able to start families or “settle down” somehow. Any thoughts of that?_ **

Jinwoo rolls the hem of his shirt between his fingers, waiting for Jiyong to answer first. 

“This is kind of like settling down, don’t you think?” says Jiyong.

“Pass, please,” says Jinwoo weakly. “Next question, please. Thank you.” 

_**Last question, if you want. Everyone thinks it’s interesting that you two are on vacation together, but it sounds like your privacy is important to you after leaving YGE. Why did you agree to be interviewed, to show us how you live today?** _

“We want people to know that we’re well,” says Jinwoo. “I think every day of the people who supported me, who still support me, though I was never special like Jiyong—” 

“Ah, you be quiet—” 

“—I want to show those people that I am very happy and all right. I want to show them on my own terms,” says Jinwoo with a touch of satisfaction. 

“Jinwoo _is_ special, obviously,” says Jiyong warmly, earning himself a tiny push from Jinwoo’s elbow. “He’s loved by people all over the world. But for my part, I have the same feelings as him. I wouldn’t have been able to live the life I did without support from fans. There will always be people who want to know what I’m doing, and if I’m happy and healthy, and for their support over the years they deserve to know, right? That I am those things—that I’m doing better than ever.” 

A final silence follows. Jiyong rolls over in Jinwoo’s lap, turning his head away toward the green glow of the water. Jinwoo looks at me and the photographer politely but blankly. His hand absently knuckling the softened ridge of Jiyong’s ribs becomes our cue to gather up our things. The two of them have sunk without us back into their world, like a pair of pilot whales, happy.

The photographer and I are left to find our own way back to our truck. We walk along a tree-lined trail littered with scraps of sun and mussels. The blue-roofed house bakes in the distance. Beyond it, under the summer sky, the sea has turned blue-black and painfully bright. The greenish, shadowed shapes of Kim Jinwoo and Kwon Jiyong can still be seen through leaves about a half kilometer behind us. They stare at the water and talk with their heads close together, perched on the overhanging rock. After a long while, Jinwoo lets himself onto the ground, stretching his legs, apparently ready to go home and eat. Jiyong hops down after him but blinks and stumbles, struggling to adjust his vision from the water to the shade; Jinwoo wraps his arms around his senior’s waist to steady him, and Jiyong rests his head comfortably on Jinwoo’s chest, eyes closed, all smiles. When Jiyong straightens, Jinwoo takes his hand. 

The last glimpse I get is of them walking together like that, hand in hand as dreamily as elders, Jinwoo in the lead—not after us toward the house but onward, inward, away from all the eyes on earth. 

***  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> edited later to correct some rookie honorific mistakes and boy! this reach ship is still stupid as hell and very precious to me


End file.
